The Desire to Live : Septimus and Esther Greenwood

Septimus’s journey saddened me, and I was quite shocked when he died. What made his death especially difficult was that throughout the novel, he does not seem to simply want to die. In many ways, he seems to want to get better. Even right before his death, Woolf writes, “He did not want to die. Life was good” (Woolf 226). This moment makes his death especially tragic because it suggests that there is still a part of him that wants to live, but he cannot find a way to escape from the pain and memories.

What makes his situation even more painful is that the people around him believe they are helping him, yet they never seem to understand what he actually needs. His doctors focus on controlling his behavior and returning him to what they consider a normal life rather than trying to understand him as a person. Bradshaw tells Septimus that “The people we are most fond of are not good for us when we are ill,” and insists that Septimus “must be taught to rest” and that he and Rezia “must be separated” (Woolf 223). Septimus becomes fixated on the word “must”: “‘Must,’ ‘must,’ why ‘must’? What power had Bradshaw over him? ‘What right has Bradshaw to say “must” to me?’” (Woolf 223). His repeated questioning reveals how little control he feels he has over his own life.

Septimus’s death is devastating because he still had a desire for life. Yet,  his final act is one that doesn't allow to continue. This is reflected in Clarissa’s thoughts when she hears about his death at her party: “Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate”(Woolf 280–281). For Clarissa, his death seems to express something that Septimus was unable to communicate while alive.

As I got farther into the Septimus story plot, it reminded me of the protagonist of The Bell Jar, Esther Greenwood. (For those that haven’t read it, I highly suggest you read it!) The Bell Jar is a coming-of-age novel following the life of Esther Greenwood, a young writer who struggles against the gender roles and conventional expectations placed on women in the 1950s.

Esther is a talented writer, and has a promising future; while Septimus is a young war veteran who also has a promising future as a husband. Yet neither can simply step into the role that society expects. Esther struggles with the expectations placed on her as a young woman for marriage, while Septimus struggles with the expectation of a strong, masculine husband.

When Esther considers suicide, she reflects, “It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn’t in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get at” (Plath 133). What struck me about this passage is that Esther recognizes that the thing she wants to escape is not simply her physical life but something deeper within her.

Their different outcomes are what make the comparison especially interesting to me. Esther survives her suicide attempt and eventually receives treatment that gives her the opportunity to return to society. Her recovery is not complete or permanent, but she is given something Septimus never receives: time, treatment that begins to address her suffering, and the possibility of finding a way to live with it.